You Could Totally Pair That With Leather Pants

Thank you. I may just do that.

Hello Beautifuls!

Welcome to all of you who are new here this week!

And welcome back to everyone who’s been here before. I am honored and deeply moved by this community and how we’re creating a space that is real and raw and also full of love and wisdom.

It is all of you who are making this community what it is.

Did you know that if you ❤️ this post (or share or restack it) it helps others discover Hello Beautifuls? It’s also the biggest thrill when another Substacker recommends HB. Thank you.

And thank you to everyone who is here, those of you in the comments—it’s one of my very favorite things in the world to be there with you—and for those readers who are quiet, I feel you too.

xoxo

The antidote to caring a whit what I’m wearing: a whole day, seven hours of it at least, spent outdoors in the quiet of a few thousand acres of open space. Ahhh. I felt like I could breathe again.

---

I went shopping two weeks ago. For those of you who've been here a minute, you know that I love clothes, have an on again off again relationship with shopping and like to think about wanting, loss, and how what we buy, what we keep and what we let go of or lose, helps us keep track of ourselves, how all of these things are an identity of sorts, except they are not at all who we are at our core. 

A young woman named Martha stood behind the counter, we talked about gratitude as she rang up my pile of clothes, and she told me how lucky she felt. She said, "One of the other girls who works here, her parents make her pay rent. I couldn't believe that when she told me." She folded the green satin pants I was buying but wasn't sure I was keeping, and continued, "I mean, when she said that, I realized how privileged I am. That yeah, I pay for my car and other stuff, but my parents feed me and give me somewhere to live." She picked up a cream sweater, a delicate mohair knit with bell sleeves and embroidered animals frolicking across the front, ran her fingers over the pink leaping horse as she rang it up and said, "You know, I have this family who wants to help me and take care of me while I go to college. Not everybody has that." I nodded, but did not tell her that I went to college on a trust fund, albeit one that was running out, would run out before I finished my last quarter, but that still paid for the apartments I lived in alone. Instead I said, "You are very lucky." I paused, "To have a family you want to be with, who wants to support you any way they can. Not everyone has that." She widened her eyes and nodded fast, "I know, I know." I smiled at her and said, "It's really cool that you know that, that you get to experience it and can appreciate it while it's happening." She looked at me for a beat and said, "Yeah, yeah, you're right. It is." And then she smiled wide enough to encompass her own luck and the possibility of luck for me too. I smiled back at the beauty of her confidence in knowing so young how loved she was. 

I saw Marth again last Friday night, my favorite time to go shopping: there are no lines and it's quiet. I was returning everything she had so gently folded into my bag two weeks ago, except one dress, which I wore the day after I got it. That's when you know you should keep a thing. When you can't wait to put it on. 

On the drive to the store, I left a voice message for a friend who lives in the Bahamas, who I rarely talk to in person, but who I leave voice messages for, and get voice messages from, daily. I told her, "Okay, when I return all this, and I'm standing there at the counter, I am not going to explain myself. When they ask if there was anything wrong with the items, I am just going to say, 'Nope,' Why is that so hard? They don't care if the rise was too high and it made me look like a stooped over 80 year old with boobs down to my navel."

But when I got to the front of the line, there was Martha, so we talked about all the reasons I was returning nearly everything. She pulled out the sweater, "Awww, you brought it back. It is kinda grandma, but in a really cute way. You could totally pair it with leather pants. You have great style, you could pull that off." I thanked her and honestly thought about buying the pair of faux leather pants I'd seen last time I was in. And then I said, "That would look great," because it would, "but I just can't with the price. If it were half that, then it would be mine forever." She laughed and agreed it was a lot. "She said, you know if you were going to wear it all the time," and I said, "Yes! Exactly. And I'm just not." As she scanned each item, unfolded it and placed it gently on a hanger, she said, "It's so important to like what you're wearing." And I said, "It is! It's something I think about a lot, how what we wear can empower us or make other people think of us one way or another. How it can be part of our identity." She nodded and I went on, "Like how we find a sweater or whatever and we see who we could be, or who we want to be when we put it on." She paused her hanging and looked at me, "Wow, yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way. And like how you can feel really good or really bad depending on what you're wearing or what other people say about it." Nail on the head, Martha, nail on the head. 

As I finished up at the keypad I said, "I really do like that little sweater, and it's kinda hard to let it go. But it's just a sweater. It's not going to make me into anyone different." She nodded and said, "I'm sure it will find a good home." I laughed and said, "I'm sure it will." As I said goodnight and walked away, I thought about how I would go home and my husband would not be there, away on a rare once-in-seven-years trip, and how I would curl up in his spot in the bed and miss him, while also enjoying being alone. There is no sweater in the world that can give us that feeling of knowing we are loved and accepted, that someone else is there helping us pay the rent, feeding us, loving us along as we figure out who we are and who we want to be in this short, tumultuous, beautiful, fleeting life. 

Also, a good sweater is hard to find. So now, I am stalking a seller on Poshmark, hoping she wants to give me a deal. Because that sweater really would look great with some leather pants.

---

Alright, beloveds, I’m trying something new here. First, it’s a thing called exteriority, where the writer describes the details of something in hopes of creating a deeper meaning. I’m not sure I really nailed it here, but the exercise stretches me and I think the piece is fun, even if it’s not a shining example of what we’re learning over in

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette

.

I also tried adding in a little humor. I really appreciate writers who can talk about hard things and invite us in—I know I do that, but I rarely do it with humor. I thought I’d start off easy, this piece is pretty light, and just try to insert some humor. I would love to know if you think it worked!

As always, I cannot wait to hear from you in the comments. If you want to do a close read, I am all ears.

And please tell me your experiences with clothes, shopping, returning, hoping something you buy will make you feel different about yourself or say something you want the world to hear. Any of it!

Also silence in nature, how it affects you, where do you go to get really quiet? What do you do when you are there? (I find the hours pass so quickly when I am outside, and there is so much to wonder at, I am never bored, even after seven hours.)

With oodles of love,

xoxo

j

Oh! And the sweater! Behold! This is the one on Posh, it’s a size L, and the one I bought and returned was an XS or an S, so I am waiting, very not-patiently, for the owner to write me back and tell me the measurements. These are the important things I’m thinking about right now, my loves. xo

And because pretty pictures make us all smile, here is one more of the county park where I spent my Sunday in utter quiet. No background traffic noise, no gas powered landscaping equipment, just wind and sun and river and bird sounds. It was fulfilling and soul nurturing. I’m buying a year-long pass and going back next Sunday.